


sealskins and other fairy tale bullshit

by Aryashi



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Selkie AU, Selkies, Temporary Character Death, fairy tale sap, spread all over rvb like honey on toast, yum yum - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-04-25 16:18:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14382351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryashi/pseuds/Aryashi
Summary: When Simmons felt Grif slip out of his grasp, heard him fall all that distance into the arctic water, he was sure that was it. He would never see Grif again. No human could survive those temperatures for that long."Come with me and be my wife," he said. "I love you, and without your sealskin you'll have to live on land.""No, please, sir," cried the young woman. "My folk will be worried about me, and I shall never be happy on land!"





	1. 1-800-ARE-YOU-GRIEVING

Simmons stared out at the wine dark sea, trying to comprehend the scale of it.

The oceans of Sidewinder were deep and largely unexplored. A frozen barren landscape only useful in its isolation, so out of the way no one would think of it. No mapping expeditions here, no sonograms of the alien sea bed, no curious humans plunging its depths.

It was simply cold, and black, and dead.

He stood only a foot back from the broken edge of the shelf. Twelve inches of alien ice separated Simmons from alien ocean, an unknown depth of water between him and solid alien ground. Simmons was vaguely aware of Sarge watching him from some distance away. Far enough to give Simmons space, but close enough that should the need arise, Sarge could… stop Simmons from doing something stupid. Like how he’d stopped Simmons from looking over the edge of the icy cliff some vague measurement of time ago.

“Son,” he’d said, so gravely, so seriously, “You don’t wanna do that.”

Speaking from experience, probably. If anyone had advice to give about teammates falling from too high-

_Crack._

The ice shelf they’d stopped on was ancient, stable, certainly solid enough to hold a few men and a warthog for a night. But stable didn’t mean _still._ The ice groaned and wailed as the ocean moved beneath and around it. As if life could be substituted by a landscape doing its best imitation.

There wasn’t much wind. A light dusting of snow slowly drifted down from heavy, settled in clouds. If the weather had been rougher, Sarge might have pushed through to Valhalla.

But probably not. Not with only an empty base waiting for the two of them.

The Blues had been more urgent. Simmons considered the state Washington had been in when the Blues had pulled his armor off. Injured, dazed, barely aware, terrified, tired.

Simmons had wanted nothing more than to draw his pistol and shoot him in the fucking head. Right through his eye. End that fucker for having a hand in Grif-

_Grif-_

The Grifshot had almost been confiscated. The investigation asked for it. Washington managed to wave them off, inserted something plausible about it going over the edge with the Meta like it was the investigators own observation. Simmons still wanted to shoot Wash, but he recognized the gesture. He’d do it later, perhaps. Or maybe when Simmons got back to Red Base and it would all come crashing down and he’d never do anything again.

_Why couldn’t he hold on-_

The snow and cold stretched from horizon to horizon, ice and ocean and glaciers as far as Simmons and his helmet’s eight times optical zoom could see. Sarge hadn’t bothered with a fire, nothing to burn and no reason to scavenge, and their armor kept them at 69.5 degrees as always. Strange, being warm here. Wrong. Distant. Dissociated. Unfair.

He was-

Grif was so cold now.

Grif would be cold until time stopped.

Grif _hated_ cold. Complained about it endlessly, even the mild chill of Valhalla’s mornings. He wasn’t built for it, snow was bullshit, it made his nose run, the whole nine yards. And now-

_CRACK_

Simmons sucked in a deep shuddering breath. It wasn’t fair. _It wasn’t fair._ It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right that Simmons was warm and Grif never would be again.

So Simmons took off his helmet.

The cold hit him all at once, like an explosion, like a gunshot. It _burned,_ sharp and pointed burning, one hundred thousand microscopic needles stabbed directly into his face.The shock of it rattled the last scraps of control Simmons had left, and he started tearing up in earnest. The cold was so all encompassing, even his tears were consumed. They went from warm to frozen solid on his face, and Simmons scrubbed them off with kevlar gloves. They plinked off the ice and into the ocean.

The waves took this offering, Simmons’ frozen tears, and acted accordingly.

\---

Simmons had caved and put his helmet back on some fuzzy amount of time later. Every amount of time was fuzzy, and Simmons hated it. He liked things orderly, exact, and clear. Here in this arctic hellhole everything was white and confused; snow and ice and water and land all commingled, mixed and imprecise. Awful.

As Simmons contemplated returning to the warthog and Sarge, if only for the solidity of them, he heard a snuffling noise coming from the ocean.

Simmons sat, knees pulled up to his chest, about ten feet from the edge of the shelf. His survival instincts lodged a half hearted request for action, but it wasn’t enough to get Simmons to move.

With a truly ridiculous  _flop!_ sound, a seal threw itself on to the ice. Except it clearly couldn’t be a seal. Seals were earth animals, and this was a tiny planet clear on the other side of the galaxy. It was just an alien that looked remarkably like a seal.

The not-a-seal, with great effort, dragged itself all the way on to ice. It look extremely annoyed with the whole procedure, snorting and flopping in a huge production. Simmons watched it for lack of anything else to do and wondered why the fuck the not-seal even bothered.

The not-seal took a breath, adjusting to finally being on land. Then it looked up, unmistakably staring directly at Simmons, and started scooting towards him with the most determined bellyflops Simmons had ever seen.

Maybe the not-seal was mad at Simmons for encroaching on its territory? Well, the petty ass could deal with it, Simmons had full body armor and the not-seal had jack shit. He wasn’t moving.

But when the not-seal finally got all the way up to Simmons, it didn’t act aggressive. No bared teeth, no attempted to puff up and look bigger, no growling, hissing, or anything. Instead, the not-seal stuck its head right into Simmons’ half folded lap and started… purring? Simmons loosened up and the impression only became more inescapable; the not-seal was getting as much of its not insubstantial bulk into Simmons armored, surely uncomfortable lap as possible and purring like a car engine.

It felt warm and solid… definite. Familiar too, though Simmons wasn’t sure how. Everyone in his family was allergic to fur, he’d grown up petless. But this fit with his imaginings of having a big affectionate dog.

On instinct, Simmons reached up and scratched the not-seal on the head. Its purring somehow got louder.

\---

Simmons’ legs had fallen asleep an hour ago. Sarge moved the warthog to him without comment or question. Neither of them were up to talking yet, apparently. Fine by Simmons.

Not-Seal seemed confused by Sarge. It kept staring at him and tilting its head like something was wrong with the picture. Sarge didn’t respond one way or the other.

Eventually night fell in earnest, without stars and pitch black. Sarge finagled some glow sticks and road flares into something like a neon green significantly brighter bed of embers. Simmons’ HUD made some warning noises about radiation, but honestly this weak ass number didn’t crack top ten most radioactive Sarge inventions that year. It was comforting, somehow.

Sarge didn’t even bluster about green technically being a shade of red. He held on to the silence he’d maintained since the cliff.

Not-Seal whined into the aching quiet. Simmons scratched its head absently.

Sarge handed Simmons a ration bar and started unwrapping his own. The crinkle of plastic echoed across the ice. Not-Seal, noticing Simmons distraction, snapped at his ration bar. Simmons quickly held it out of its reach.

“Get your own, fatass!” Simmons said, on reflex. He froze. Not-Seal, initially stretching for the food, lost interest and stared intently at Simmons’ helmet. If Simmons didn’t know any better, he’d think Not-Seal was concerned.

Sarge picked up on it too. He sighed. “Simmons-” he stopped. Cleared his throat. Stared at the green embers. Tried again. “I-”

“Sir,” Simmons cut Sarge off, “I’d rather not.”

“Not?”

Simmons gestured between them. “This. Can we just… not?”

Sarge looked at him, focused. Serious. “You gonna be good if we don’t?”

The ‘Yes’ Simmons tried first caught in his throat like its own blatant falsehood was a hook dug into the flesh of his esophagus. The “Since when does it matter?” Simmons tried next was much more successful.

Not-Seal watched them both, wary. Maybe it sensed the tension in the air.

“Since a lot of nonsense happened all at once,” Sarge said quietly. “A man should bury, ignore, deny, and otherwise shove down his emotional delicate pansy nonsense, but-”

The wind whistled by like an intruder fleeing the scene.

“... There gets to be a point where that doesn’t work.”

Not-Seal looked away, staring down into the snow. Simmons opened his mouth to deflect, to insist he was fine, but instead what emerged was “It’s my fault.”

Both Sarge and Not-Seal stiffened.

“I couldn’t hold on, and- he begged me to grab him but I wasn’t strong enough, and I never…” Simmons’ eyes burned, “I never got a chance to tell him-”

Not-Seal bellowed. Or groaned? It made a loud, unpleasant, startling noise, and wiggled right out of Simmons’ lap. Blood flow immediately returned to his legs in a flurry of pins and needles, but Simmons was too baffled to notice. He scrambled to his feet as Not-Seal flopped face down in the snow, still making dramatic noises and flailing all over the place.

“What in sam hill is wrong with it?!” Sarge said.

“I don’t know! I didn’t do-” Simmons trailed off. Not-Seal was shifting. It looked less seal shaped by the second, the way it moved didn’t make sense anymore. Was- was it _molting?_ An alien shedding some kind of larval form? Even the noises it made were changing, getting less guttural, quieter, more complicated and varied. Starting to sound-

To sound…

_Familiar?_

“HHHOLY _FUCK_ it’s fucking _FREEZING_ shit shit shit this was a t-t-terrible idea jesus on a b-b-bullshit _pogostick-”_

 _“_ ** _GRIF?!_ ** ”

There, wiggling around in the snow like a man trying to escape a too small sleeping bag without using his hands, was Dexter Grif. Somehow emerging from Not-Seal’s _skin._

Wait. Skin. As in-

 _“THAT’S the emergency nap blanket?!”_ Simmons shrieked at the top of his lungs.

Grif paused his shivering and cursing for the first time. _“Really?_ That’s your first question?”

Simmons hauled off and punched Grif in the nose.

Then he fell to his knees, pulled Grif into a hug, and started ugly crying all over him.

\---

Sarge and Simmons started down at Grif, who was currently a seal. Not a not-seal. Well, kind of a not-seal? Because he was always Grif as a human or a seal. And the seal was an earth seal, like the human was an earth human. But did that make Grif a not-human too? This was too much.

Point being, Grif was currently down two legs and his ability to speak, because his armor sunk to the bottom of the ocean back by the cliff and they didn’t have arctic grade survival gear in the warthog. It was either this or Grif died of exposure.

That didn’t mean Sarge and Simmons didn’t have questions.

“One slap for yes, two slaps for no,” Simmons said firmly. “Do you understand?”

Grif rolled his eyes. Somehow. He slapped his own belly once.

“How do we know that was a slap for yes? He could somehow get even dumber like that, and just be acting at pure random.”

Grif slapped twice.

“No, see? He’s saying that’s stupid.”

Sarge looked at Simmons.

“He said it, not me!”

Grif snorted, somehow smiling.

The intensity of Sidewinder’s night was matched only by how short it was. As soon as Simmons had pulled himself together and Grif had made it clear he was cold as balls, light had re-appeared over the horizon. In the time it took for Grif to settle back into his skin ( _the fuck kind of sentence was that, why did Simmons just think it like it wasn’t fucking crazy, what the fuck)_ the local sun was up and everything was stupidly bright again. If this was what arctic landscape was like on overcast days, Simmons didn’t even wanna think about how blinding it would be on clear ones.

Sarge huffed, unamused with Grif’s amusement. “Okay wise guy, control question! Confirm that’s actually Grif’s sorry carcass in there.” Sarge glared down at the roll of adorable blubber and eyes.

“What color… was Grif’s armor?”

Silence. Grif stuck his head in the snow.

“Uh, sir-” Simmons said.

“I knew it!” Sarge interrupted, “No answer! Clearly he’s an imposter! Simmons, get me my shotgun,” Sarge said, shotgun still strapped to his back.

Grif groaned into the snow like he was already shot. He stood out from the landscape, of course, but not as much as Simmons might have expected. His fur was a light grey except in the places it wasn’t, white patches on a fin here, a splotch on his tail there, even a big chunk of white on his snout. It made Grif look a little calico-esque.

“Maybe just one more question?” Simmons said, tearing his eyes away from the seal throwing a tantrum.

“Alright, though I don’t see why it’s needed!” Sarge cleared his throat. “Grif, if that is your real name… can you do something for me?”

Two slaps, head still buried in the snow.

“That’s Grif.”

 _“What?!”_ Simmons said as Grif yanked his head up to stare at Sarge, equally dumbfounded.

“Grif never did anything for anyone in his entire sorry excuse for a life! Case closed.” Sarge dusted off his kevlar gloved hands, radiating smug.

Grif slapped a fin over his eyes.

“See? Even Grif agrees!”

“O... kay.” Simmons said. “Moving on… Grif, are you hurt?”

Grif uncovered his eyes and looked back at Simmons. He slapped twice.

“Could you do this… changing thing all along?”

One slap.

“Is that why you almost shot Donut when he tried to wash your quote “emergency nap blanket” unquote?”

One slap.

“Can you actually not stand how cold it is or are you just avoiding answering questions?”

Grif glared at him. Simmons glared back. Simmons broke first. It’s very hard to glare at a seal to begin with, but with those splotches too… it wasn’t even a fair fight.

“... Can you handle riding in the warthog?”

One slap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is canon facts selkies can purr. CANON. FACTS.


	2. skinning a seal (metaphorically)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Once a Selkie recovers their lost skin, the Selkie immediately returns to the sea without looking back._

They stuck Grif in shotgun. Simmons pondered the scale of ridiculous his life had achieved, blasting accordion music out onto the ice with a seal awkwardly jostling in the front seat of a military grade jeep, shadowed by the barrel of a gatling gun.

Sarge hadn’t put the music on, before.

That was maybe the strangest thing. The sheer whiplash of it. But what were their lives if not insane, constant whiplash? Simmons honestly didn’t know what he’d do if events started proceeding in logical fashion. Think it was a dream, probably.

Grif the seal riding in the warthog? Too nonsensical for Simmons’ dreams.

\---

The last leg of the road trip, after ice, woods, and desert, was a stretch completely under water. Not a very long stretch, even UNSC grade military vehicles couldn’t run on the ocean floor forever, but a considerable chunk of time. The seafloor was sandy and mostly barren, lightly speckled with squat purple foliage and the occasional darting motion that Simmons interpreted as fish. Light filtered down without much trouble and created waving and shifting shafts of yellow-green around them.

Grif floated out of his seat, of course. He was a mammal not currently encased in a couple hundred pounds of metal armor. He shook himself a bit, stretched, and then kept pace with them. Occasionally Grif had to surface to breathe, but even with Sarge never slowing down, he caught up easily. Simmons didn’t think of seals as particularly graceful animals (when he bothered to think of them) and Grif! Nothing about Grif was graceful; a fat slob committed to moving only when he had to.

But watching Grif cut through the water… graceful was the only word for it. Not majestic or awe-inspiring, no over-impressed flowery nonsense here, but- Graceful, for sure. Just speaking objectively.

Grif glanced back and caught Simmons staring. Simmons looked away towards a purple plant on his right. Grif slightly led the warthog before, but he slowed down and settled next to the gun.. Simmons turned to look Grif’s way just in time to get slapped directly in the visor.

“ _What the-!”_ Simmons yelped, jumping back. He nearly slipped off the turret and must have looked ridiculous doing it, because Grif lost his shit laughing. Somehow. It seemed perfectly obvious to Simmons he did, anyway. The how of it never crossed Simmons’ mind.  

“The hell was that for?!” Simmons shouted uselessly. Not like Grif had a radio and Sarge didn’t bother to respond. Simmons took a swing at Grif, made clumsy and slow by water resistance. Grif dodged easily and smacked his arm away, like a smartass.

The slap fight consumed the rest of the trip. Simmons managed a few hits of his own, thank god. The alternative was just embarrassing.

\---

When they drove up on to Valhalla’s shore, Simmons got a distinct sensation. The same one he felt his first summer home from college. Everything felt smaller. Familiar, but smaller.

The wall Grif drove through was still wrecked. Simmons could see the rubble from the shore. Would the wrecked warthog still be there? Probably. The blues were messy even when they hadn’t just adopted a murderer.

Grif sat in the front seat for… some reason? He’d settled in when they approached the shore and only now did Simmons realize that could be a problem. As if to prove him right, Tucker walked up to meet them. Simmons didn’t know why he was even at Red Base, but he didn’t look to be in the best mood.

“Took you assholes long eno-” Tucker paused. “What the fuck is that?”

Sarge scoffed. “Are yer eyes failing you, Blue?”

“Probably! Because right now I’m seeing a goddamn manatee chilling in your car.”

“Ha! Just like a blue to have terrible vision! _Clearly_ that’s a seal!”

“Awesome,” Tucker said, deadpan. “The species makes all the difference and now it’s not completely crazy. Couldn’t you have just gotten a _dog?_ ”

“What, adopting Washington was better?” Simmons meant for it to be flippant, a light jab, but it came out sharp and serrated. Tucker stiffened but didn’t look away. No comeback either, that didn’t make sense-

Oh. Right. Tucker still thought Red team was down to two. Simmons had no desire to correct him. _Is this what holding a grudge is?_ Simmons thought. _Huh._

Of course, in the most awkward moment possible, Caboose came barreling in from over the hill.

“Tucker! Tucker, Wash is trying to get out of naptime again! It is not even food time yet!”

Tucker groaned. “Fucking- Whatever! Later, assholes!” He ran off, presumably to force a heavily injured Agent Washington back into bedrest. Caboose didn’t do anything for a second or two, then noticed Red Team in a warthog dripping water on the beach.

“Oh hello! How are you doing?” Caboose said.

“Tip top shape!” Sarge replied, chest puffed out. “Ready and raring to go! Finally, some even teams! A fair fight for Red glory against the Blue Menace!”

Caboose shifted back and forth on his feet. “That’s nice. Is the walrus your new teammate? Did you find him because you are sad about Griff?”

Grif barked in protest, maybe about being called a walrus, more likely about the two Fs Simmons could hear Caboose saying.

“Uh… yeah!” Simmons said, “Yes, that is exactly what happened. We picked up this… walrus, because- that thing you said! But I’m not anymore! So-”

Simmons finally got out of the gunner position, walked over to Grif, and picked him up right around the middle. Grif, for his part, flailed, groaned, and complained mightily. But power armor, cyborg limbs, and years of army drills eventually added up, so the twisting was all for naught.

Simmons waded out to his thighs and tossed Grif back in like a fish. The splash was considerable.  

“AND I’LL BE SURE TO PUT GRIF’S STUFF ON THE _BEACH,_ INCLUDING HIS _CLOTHES!”_ Simmons yelled, cupping the front of his helmet.

From the waves Simmons heard a singular but very distinctive _slap_.

“It’s… where he’d want to be buried!” Simmons said, wading back on to shore.

Caboose nodded sagely. “He did like making a mess.”

“Tell me about it.” Simmons sighed.

“Welp!” Sarge suddenly exclaimed. “I’m gonna go park. See you in our future glorious battles, Caboose!”

“Okay! See you soon!” Caboose waved goodbye as Sarge drove to the base.

Simmons didn’t follow right away. For a moment, he looked out at the waves. Sun-speckled and calm with low tide, the ocean looked soft and inviting. Open. He’s never been a “oh the majesty of nature!” type; really, the ocean was a big mass of salty water made by the same ‘magical’ forces that made a gross muddy puddle at the bottom of a hill.

But- Simmons didn’t know. Something felt different.

“It’s good you are thinking about him,” Caboose said, apropos of nothing.

“What?”

“Griff. He’d want you to remember him. Best friends are good at that. Like me and Church!”

Simmons looked at Caboose, really looked at him for the first time since they arrived. Caboose was staring out at the ocean, fiddling absently with his fingers. Simmons noticed a hunch in Caboose’s shoulders, like he was carrying a weight that hadn’t been there before.

“Church gave me that job. Remembering. It’s very important.”

“... yeah.” Simmons looked back at the ocean. “Best thing you can do, right?

“Memory is the key,” Caboose said softly.

“Right.” Simmons watched for a flash of grey in the waves. “Only immortality a person can ask for.”

\---

When Simmons got back to the beach, bundle of Grif’s clothes in hand, Caboose had wandered off. Probably, hopefully, back to Blue base.

Simmons thought about how Caboose would react when Grif miraculously came back to life. Would he be happy? Jealous? Hopeful that meant another stay of real execution for Church too? Maybe that was the rule, a limited number of ridiculous resurrections per team. Actually an AI, CPR for a headshot, cyborg organ donation surgery, resurrected by aliens, fragment with the original AI’s memories, secretly a magic seal the whole time. Damn, when you laid it all out like that, magic seal didn’t even seem that strange.

But the luck _did_ run out eventually. Church and Donut were more than enough evidence.

Simmons put out Grif’s clothes (boxers, some sweatpants, and the least stained shirt Simmons could find) on a towel and paused. Should he stick around? Make sure Grif came back? Give him some privacy? Simmons had no idea how this was supposed to go. Grif had said, slapped, indicated, whatever- that he was coming back. But...

He had a mythology phase. People pegged Simmons as a space kid, and space was pretty rad, but that was more an adult interest in his mind. Hard to find simple joy in the place the war was. Myths on the other hand, those were fascinating. Monsters, legends, heroes, but even better endless trivia, lists, and indexes upon indexes of stories. It started with Dungeons and Dragons monsters, but his interest quickly ballooned out. Mostly Greco Roman and Indian, the best known epics, but eventually a little bit of everything.

Simmons might not remember the proper name for magic seals that could shed their fur coats and become human, but he knew the arc of those stories. Seal women were trapped on land by selfish men hiding their skins, until one day the seal found their skin and immediately escaped.

Always, always escaped.

“I told you, that stain is old as fuck, no way it’s coming out.”

“EAUGH!” Simmons said, super dignified and put together.

Grif stood on the beach, eyebrow arched up in a “the hell was that?” expression. He’d wrapped his ‘emergency nap blanket’ around his shoulders, long enough to cover everything indecent. Beyond that, Grif looked… tired. Bruised and worn out in the orange light of sunset.

“D-don’t sneak up on me like that!” Simmons said, stepping away and turning around.

“Is it sneaking if I walked up in plain sight while you were daydreaming about nerdy shit?”

“Yes!” Simmons said.

“Whatever.” The small sounds of rustling fabric accompanied the waves. “That out of the way, I’m goddamn starving. The fish around here are all weird alien bones.”

Simmons blinked. “You ate _fish? Alien fish!?”_ Simmons turned around in shock. Grif was dressed now, but his skin hadn’t moved from his shoulders.

“Uh...yeah? Seals eat fish.” Grif looked at Simmons like he was a moron.

“Not _alien_ fish! That could poison you! And what about when you change back? Maybe it’s _extra_ poisonous to humans! Did you ever think about that?”

“No, because that’s not how it works.” Grif said, already walking towards Red Base.

“So how _does_ it work?”

Grif stopped and sighed. “Now? We’re doing this now.”

Simmons crossed his arms. “You can’t put it off forever.”

“Oh can’t I?”

“Not if you want armor,” Simmons said, smugly.

“What?”

Simmons gestured at Grif, indicating his sweatpants, t-shirt, sealskin, and total lack of encasing metal. “You never bothered to learn how to file requisition forms. I did.”

Grif raised his eyebrows. “And what makes you think I’m crazy about walking around in a tin can agai-”

“Caboose is on the other side of the valley and he thinks we’re all friends.”

Grif’s mouth closed with an audible _clack._  “... Fuck.”

“Yep.”

“You play dirty.”

“Learned from the best,” Simmons said.

“I’m so proud,” Grif said, sarcastic and affectionate.

“... We can wait until tomorrow. I wanted to make an itemized list of questions anyway.” Simmons walked towards Red base, already forming the baseline top ten questions in his mind.

“Joy,” Grif muttered, following Simmons inside.

Sarge was there, sitting at the kitchen table with a datapad. He looked up as they walked in the room. Even if Simmons hadn’t pointed it out, Grif’s unarmored self was especially obvious with both Simmons and Sarge in the room.

“Grif,” Sarge said.

“Sarge,” Grif said.

Sarge set the datapad down. “Now, a man’s entitled to some secrets, but seeing as how you barely qualify-”

“Woah, fuck you!” Grif snapped. His skin shifted tighter on his shoulders. Maybe in response to a tightening grip, or-

“Ah, can it!” Sarge said, “That had nothin’ to do with your Two Types of Fat for the Price of One nonsense. Just the standard contempt you’ve earned by being yer lazy, insubordinate self!”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Anyway, now that the water mammal is out of the bag, I’ve got some questions-”

“We’re doing that tomorrow morning,” Simmons interrupted. A pause. And then “... sir.”

Sarge gave Simmons an appraising look. “Hm. Fine. Bright and early! 0700 hours and not a second later! Clear?”

“Yes, sir!” Simmons said.

“Fine,” Grif said. “Can I _eat_ now?”

Sarge waved them off, returning focus to his datapad. “Now that the teams are even, it’s finally time to reinvigorate our offensive strategy!”

“Offensive sure is the word…” Grif said, digging out an MRE from the cabinet.

“Exactly! Return to the days of Red Team striking first, driving events, leading the charge!”

“But didn’t we learn the whole war was fake like, three days ago?” Simmons said, reaching over Grif and grabbing a meal for himself.

“Can’t let the past define you, Simmons! Gotta move forward into the bright and glorious future! A future… of _victory.”_

\---

Simmons wanted to spend the night researching. If nothing else, he would have _some_ foothold into this besides fuzzy memories from amateur research he did as a hobby in grade 6. Who knew how much of that Simmons even accurately recalled, nevermind if it was right in the first place.

But as soon as Simmons got out of his armor and into his bed, datapad in hand for the list making an research he absolutely intended on doing, he blinked and his alarm blared loud in his ear.

“Auugh…” What time was it? Morning light was in the base, the hard edge of the datapad was under his stomach, and he had no idea how either of those had gotten there. Simmons looked at the clock and felt all sleep daze drain out of him instantly.

0657! Simmons was _almost late!_ He hadn’t prepared! Simmons still couldn’t remember what Grif’s species ( _species???)_ was even _called!_ But the time flipped to 0658 and Simmons hated being _late_ even more than he hated being unprepared. Getting dressed in record time (1:17.67 seconds) Simmons sprinted into the kitchen, where Sarge was, as expected, already there and Grif was-

Also… already there. Sitting at the table in a yellow shirt Simmons was pretty sure used to be his and the same sweatpants as yesterday like it was _normal._

Simmons stopped dead and stared, slack-jawed. More than Grif emerging from a seal on Sidewinder’s ice shelf, this felt like the universe turning inside out. Grif. Was at a meeting. Before Simmons _._

_What the flying fuck._

“Uh-”

“Simmons! Only 25 seconds early? Disgraceful!” Sarge shook his head to punctuate his disappointment. “Don’t make it a habit!”

“Y-yes sir!” Simmons said, out of habit.

“Now we wait for Grif to drag his sorry carcass out of bed. 30 minutes late, as per usual-”

“Um, sir-”

“Interrupting too! It’s been a heck of a few weeks Simmons, but letting military decorum decay this much! What has gotten _into_ you?”

“Yeah Simmons, what _has_ gotten into you?” Grif added.

“At this rate we won’t have time for the usual pre-Grif arrival Meeting Preparation Meeting!” Sarge said.

“You guys have meetings without me? Wow.” Grif said, chin in his hand. “I’ve never felt this before… is it, appreciation? Huh, novel!”

“Wait a minute,” Sarge held up a finger. “Something ain’t right here.”

“I’ll say. Simmons, your shoulder plate’s on backwards. Shame.” Grif pointed at Simmons’ left shoulder.

“Oh god it is!” Simmons said, dropping his datapad and scrambling to fix it.

“Grif! When in red blazes did you get here?!” Sarge stood up, knocking his chair backwards.

“Half an hour ago!”

“Lies!” Sarge said while he set his chair back upright. “No way you got in here without my noticin’!”

“I walked in and said hi. You even response grunted! I ate an entire bowl of cereal right here!” Grif tapped the table for emphasis.

“Then where’s the evidence?” Sarge asked, glaring from his now upright chair.

“In the sink.”

“Who _ARE_ you?!” Simmons shrieked, finally emerging from his shoulder plate fixing endeavor.

Grif shot Simmons a look. For the first time in god knew how long, Simmons wasn’t sure what Grif was trying to convey. Simmons picked up his datapad and went to sit in his usual place.

Half the table was empty. No one commented on it.

“Okay,” Grif said, braced. “If we’re gonna do this we’re gonna do this _once._ Sarge gets first question cause he’d throw a fit if he didn’t. Trade back and forth with Simmons. Can’t come up with a question in ten seconds, forfeit your turn. Three forfeits, you’re out. Clear?”

Simmons nodded, Sarge grunted.

“And… go.”

Sarge wasted no time. “Where ya keepin the blanket when it ain’t on yer person?”

“None of your goddamn business.” Grif said. “Simmons, your turn.”

“Uh-” Crap crap crap, all Simmons’ datapad had on it was the ‘seeeeeeeee-’ stretching into forever in a text document, he couldn’t come up with anything good on the spot! This was exactly why he wanted to make a list! But the clock ticked down despite Simmons’ panic, so he spit out the first thing he thought of looking at Grif's yellow shirt, “Is Kai a seal too?”

Grif looked deeply unimpressed. “Yes. Come on Simmons, I expected better from you.”

“It was late!” Simmons whined.

“Uh huh.”

Sarge jumped in. “How long can you be a seal for?”

“Forever.” Grif paused. “With caveats.”

“What kinda-”

“Not your turn! Strike one. Simmons?”

Simmons latched on to Sarge’s direction. “What kind of caveats?”

“You stay in for more than 3 days, you’re committed for seven years.”

Sarge whistled.

Grif nodded. “Yeah, the ocean doesn’t fuck around.”

“Does it work the other way round for land?” Sarge asked.

“No, it’s more like… if you don’t keep chewing gum it gets dried out and you have to work to get it soft and chewy again. Being on land is like chewing.”

“Gross,” Simmons said “So… It takes effort?”

Grif waved his hand in a ‘sort of’ motion. “Does breathing take effort? Kind of, technically, but not really. Depends on how you’re raised.”

“How were you raised?” Sarge interjected.

“On land. I mean, I did end up in the army. Hard to enlist a goddamn seal.”

“And going AWOL would mean being in the ocean for seven years,” Simmons thought out loud.

“Not a question Simmons, strike two.”

“We share strikes?!” Simmons cried.

“Yep. And that totally counts as your question. Sarge?”

Sarge didn’t respond right away, but before the ten seconds were up, he said “Why don’t ya trust us?”

 _Plink. Plink. Plink._ Water dropped into Grif’s cereal bowl in the sink. Suddenly that noise was deafening.

“It’s not… that’s…” Grif scrubbed at his head. It didn’t feel right. That was a Simmons move, not a Grif one. “It’s not like there were water features at Blood Gulch!”

“Not what I asked. Why _don’t_ you trust us?” Sarge leaned forward, hands clenched on the table in front of him.

Grif leaned back in his chair until he was looking up at the ceiling.

“Could… could we see your skin?” Simmons asked. “Just with our eyes,” he clarified, like this was grade school.The reassurance did seem to do some good. Grif eased out of tense and into thoughtful. He shifted, stood up, and walked out.

Sarge and Simmons didn’t move.

“Do… do you think he’s coming back?” Simmons said, quietly.

“Well he’s gotta eventually, we’re with the food.”

“What about his snack caches?”

“ _Eventually._ Patience is key, Simmons!”

Grif walked in just as Sarge was finishing the thought. In his arms he held a bundle of light grey fur.

Grif approached the table with all the cool of a kid in his first play told to act casual. Tension sang in the air like it was the prima donna on opening night.

His skin wasn’t folded. Grif took the bundle and set it on the kitchen table, then spread it out in one smooth motion.

The thing was, everyone on Red Team had seen the emergency nap blanket at some point. Grif used it in exactly that capacity a _lot._ But now that Simmons knew, knew what this was and what it meant, the entire dynamic changed.

There was magic in this room.

Simmons and Sarge, true to their word, looked with their eyes. Grif’s skin was light grey, impossibly soft looking with some pure white splotches. It wasn’t a factory cut rectangle, but it wasn’t precisely fur pelt shaped either. Like a mixture of a cloak and a pelt, a fur garment with no seams. The longer Simmons looked at it, the more he wondered why he’d never thought it was strange before.

“How safe does this gotta be?” Sarge asked idly. Simmons broke away from the fur to look at Sarge instead.

Grif grimaced. “I can live without it like someone can live without arms and legs.”

Simmons picked up the rhythm again. “That’s why you kept it in your emergency pack instead of the regulation supplies?”

“Yep.” Grif actually cracked a small smile. “For an emergency.”

Simmons realized what he meant. “... Shit.”

“Yeeeep, settle in Simmons, cause I’m gonna let that hang over your head for a _while.”_

“Come on! There were extenuating circumstance I wasn’t aware of!”

Grif shook his head. “Nope, you told me taking out the supplies was dumb. But was it Simmons? _Was it?”_

“Shut up!” Simmons yelled. “You got lucky! This was the _one_ emergency where that made sense!”

“It doesn’t gotta be on yer person at all times?” Sarge cut in, still staring at the skin.

“If you could take your head off you’d still wanna keep it close.” Grif stared at Sarge staring.

Simmons cut in. “What happens… what happens if, _hypothetically,_ someone tries to take it?”

Grif’s expression hardened. “It’s… there’s rules. Someone takes it and knows what they’re doing…” Grif’s fists clenched.

Silence. Sarge didn’t ask for clarification.

“What other rules are there?” Simmons asked.

Grif made a wrong answer buzzer sound. “And that’s strike three. Good game gentlemen, let’s play it again some never!” He yanked his skin close and retreated in the direction of his room.

Simmons still didn’t know the name of the magic seal species.

\---

Simmons stood on top of Red Base, ostensibly on guard duty. Sarge hadn’t told him to and it wasn’t scheduled, but if anyone asked, Simmons was guarding Red base. Leaning against the huge tower without armor burned like leaning on a hot stove, but with the metal plating it was calming. Like the thrum of leaning your head on a car window during a summer drive. The pulsing blasts rose in steady rhythm, consistent and regular. _Thrum!_ Pause. _Thrum!_ Pause. _Thrum!_ Pause.

The valley spread out in front of Simmons was still a wreck. The destroyed warthog indeed still sat there, right along with the walls blown to chunks on both ends of the canyon walls. A huge slab of concrete was missing from Blue Base. All of it was an eyesore. Someone should clean it up.

 _Thrum!_ Pause.  _Thrum!_ Pause. _Thrum!_ Pause.

Simmons wasn’t thinking about much of anything when Grif walked into his field of view. Without the clunk of armor boots, footsteps didn’t even register anymore. Simmons should consider being concerned about that at some point.

“Hey,” Simmons said, by way of greeting.

“Hey,” Grif responded.

“Got those forms ready,” Simmons said. It was the first thing he thought of.

“What?” Grif said, and then visibly remembered. “Oh, right. Armor. Aren’t you gonna forge my signature like usual?”

Simmons shrugged. “Already did, but.” He didn’t have a follow up. Why was there a ‘but’? Grif had answered questions, frankly more questions than Simmons ever expected him to, and if Grif planned on staying in Valhalla he’d absolutely need new armor.

“Just… checking that you wanted me to.” Simmons said, looking up at the tower shooting energy into the sky.

“Uh, yeah? Not like I suddenly got a deathwish.”

 _Relief_ flooded through Simmons violently, like a busted dam. He didn’t understand why.

“O-Obviously! Of course!” Simmons said, turing back to Grif. “If you’re staying you need armor, so of course you need armor!”

 _Thrum!_ Pause. _Thrum!_ Pause. _Thrum!_ Pause.

Grif stared at Simmons. Standing there in his sweatpants and shirt and no armor, no sealskin either, looking at Simmons like he was trying to pick him apart.

“You’re acting weird.”

“No I’m not!” Simmons said.

“Dude, you totally are. You’re making this super weird.”

Simmons sputtered and gestured at Grif for a few seconds, and finally came up with “I’m _trying_ okay? It’s a lot to adjust to!”

Grif sighed and settled into sitting against the rock wall across from Simmons. “Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen, of why I don’t tell people about the Selkie thing.”

The name rang a bell in Simmons’ head. “ _That’s_ what they’re called!”

“You didn’t even get as far as the _name?_ I thought you weren’t saying it because of some allergy to fairy tale shit.”

“Shut up, it’s not even a super common myth.”

Grif held a hand up to his heart. “Ouch. You wound me, Simmons. Calling me and my family a myth!”

Simmons picked up a bit of rock and threw it at Grif’s head. It missed, of course. “I figured out the quote “emergency nap blanket” unquote, remember that? Cause I did it. The name just slipped my mind.”

Grif leaned forward into his knees. “Yeah, how did you know about that anyway?”

“I am very smart.” Simmons preened.

“You joined the Blues because Sarge decided he didn’t believe you about the tank.”

“ _Unrelated!”_

Grif snorted. “Whatever you say, genius.”

 _Thrum!_ Pause. _Thrum!_ Pause _Thrum!_ Pause.

“So what do you think you know?”

Simmons blinked. “That’s an ominous way to phrase that.”

“Come on, you wanna walk around all incorrect? What’s a little light mocking in the face of- gasp! Being _wrong?”_

“... Fuck.” Simmons took a breath. “Okay, most selkies are women.”

Grif made a wrong answer buzzer sound.

“They’re from Scotland.”

“Nnnooope!” Grif said with a shit eating grin.

“But selkies are from scottish lore!”

“Doesn’t make it more right.”

Simmons sighed. “They’re drawn to dissatisfied people.”

Grif buzzed again. “It’s lousy to stereotype Simmons.”

Simmons clonked his head against the tower. “This is pointless.”

“No no, this is _educational!”_ Grif said, fingers clasped behind his head.

“You’re just telling me I’m wrong!” Simmons whined.

“I know, it’s great. Reversal shit.”

Simmons stopped leaning against the tower. “I’m leaving.”

“Come ooon, one more! For the road!” Grif wheedled.

“Fine!” Simmons said, pulling something from the flickers of memory. “This one is totally ridiculous, you don’t even have to tell me it’s bullshit.”

“Oh oh oh, is it the one about land being deadly?” Grif said in some parody of an eager voice.

“Even better.” Simmons crossed his arms, already sort of laughing. “I- I don’t even remember where I heard this, it for sure wasn’t part of a story-”

“Quit burying the lead Simmons, what’s the dumb folklore?”

“It’s… it’s that to call a selkie, you have to go to the ocean and- and fucking _cry_ in it. How nonsensical is that?” Simmons said, falling into laughter.

Grif did not laugh. Grif didn’t even respond. He looked… frozen up. Stiff.

“... Grif?”

Grif startled. “Uh- yeah, yeah that’s um- whatever you said! Nonsussical! That thing!”

Simmons squinted. “... Now _you’re_ acting weird.”

“Me? Acting weird? Nope! Of course not! Why would I be acting weird? I just remembered I left my socks in the dishwasher so-”

Simmons blocked Grif’s exit. “Since when do you care about leaving your socks in the dishwasher? You told me that’s the best way to wash socks!” Simmons paused. “Which it still isn’t!”

“I care since right now.” Grif said, pushing past him. Or, attempting to. It was very hard to push armor when you weren’t in armor yourself.

“What are you so worked up abo-” Simmons stopped. He abruptly recalled something he had been trying very hard to forget.

_Kevlar scrubbing at his face, knocking away tiny droplets of freshly frozen ice into the waves-_

“-ooo… Oh. _Oh.”_

Grif caught the change. “What are you thinking? Cause whatever it is, it’s stupid! Really stupid! You can totally forget about it right now.”

Simmons didn’t reply. Not directly. Instead, he mumbled to himself “We never asked how you found us.”

Grif looked positively _ill._

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Simmons said, refocusing on Grif. “That’s how you found me.”

Grif didn’t deny it, which was all the confirmation Simmons needed.

“I… don’t even know how to respond to that.” Simmons said, taking half a step back from Grif.

Grif took his own half step back in response. “Good. Me either. So let’s just- Not!”

“Not?”

“Not.” Grif said firmly. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“R-right.” Simmons said absently. _Grif found me because I cried for him,_ he thought. “Nothing at all.”

Grif nodded firmly. “Not a damn thing.”

_Grif came back when I called._

“Right.”

“Right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear to god, that crying into the ocean thing is real ass selkie lore. look it up!!!


	3. Awkward Conversation Seal

The day Grif’s armor arrived became the unspoken day Grif would ‘miraculously come back from the dead’. At least that’s what Simmons took from Grif staying well hidden away from Blue eyes. Not that they needed much hiding from; Washington wasn’t out of the woods and keeping an eye on him took all Tucker and Caboose’s attention. Sarge pointedly didn’t order any attacks and muttered something about “That’s exactly what they’d _expect_ us to do.”

The package got airdropped in on Tuesday, about as much off schedule from the usual every other Thursday supply drop as it was possible to be. Of course Tucker noticed, it’d be impossible not to. He got there after Simmons did, thank god.

“What’s that?”

Simmons tried to say ‘none of your business’ and ‘socks’ at the same time, so what came out of his mouth was “None of your socks.”

“... yeah.” Tucker said. “Dude, why would I even want your socks?”

“You threatened us at gunpoint for them that time!” Simmons shifted the box in his grip, obscuring the label. The label that clearly said ARMOR INSIDE, HANDLE WITH CARE.

“Back at _Blood Gulch._ No one had jack shit there.”

“Right. Anyway!” Simmons shifted the box one degree too many, and it clattered in the way a big box of socks doesn’t.

Tucker perfectly communicated “I don’t buy this for a hot second” with the angle of his helmet, but didn’t actually say anything or move when Simmons hustled out of the conversation as quickly as possible.

\---

Grif’s entire reintroduction plan consisted of

  1. Putting on his armor
  2. Walking out of the valley
  3. Walking back _into_ the valley
  4. Screaming at the top of his lungs “Anybody here?! Helloooooo!?”



Simmons discovered this by seeing Grif _enact_ his reintroduction plan.

“GRIF WHAT THE FUCK.” Simmons shrieked.

“Oh Simmons! Hi there! I am so happy to see that you are here, and that I have found you after wandering through the wilderness for so many days!”

Simmons knew that voice. It was Grif’s _‘_ I’m not even trying to act because people are so ready to believe this lie they’ll take it with no questions asked, no matter how bad I sell it,’ voice. Simmons especially hated it because more often than not-

“Grif?!” Tucker said, incredulous but not doubtful, “You’re alive!”

Grif titled up his helmet oh-so-slightly, oh-so-smugly. “Tucker! What a nice surprise to run into you all in the first place I’d thought you’d go. Really, this worked out great. I’m glad my instincts were so trustworthy.”

Simmons’ hand clanked against his helmet visor without conscious intent. The face-palm in his soul expressed itself before his brain even got wind of desire. “You’re unbelievable,” Simmons muttered.

Tucker ignored him. “But- how? You went off a cliff!”

Grif shrugged. “Dunno. Woke up on shore and walked back here.”

“You. Walked. For a week,” Tucker said.

“Sure did,” Grif said, examining his gloves like he could check his nails through the kevlar.

“Okay that’s-”

“Grif!”

Caboose walked over the hill, closely followed by Washington. Washington looked better, walking on his own two feet with armor on and everything, but despite his best efforts Simmons could see him favoring a leg and tensing every other step. It was hard to take him seriously in Church’s armor, flinching like that. Caboose waved like his life depended on it.

“You’re okay! That’s great! Simmons, look, your best friend came back!” Caboose beamed through his helmet, joy obvious and overpowering. Simmons looked back at Grif and found Grif looking at him.

“I’m your Best Friend?” Grif said, slightly mocking. But only slightly. Simmons shoved him in the shoulder instead of responding with words.

Washington took the opportunity to approach. “Hi. You must be… surprised to see me here.”

That’s right when Simmons remembered Grif should have been surprised to see him there. Grif’s moment of confused silence abruptly flipped to “Oh! Uh! Yeah! What are you doing here, guy who last I knew was working with The Meta?”

 _How can someone who spends so much time lying be so bad at it?!_ Simmons thought helplessly.

“Simmons can fill you in on the details but… I’m not your enemy anymore. Wanted to make that clear.” Washington indicated Red Base. “I managed to keep the Bruteshot away from authorities, so if you-”

“DIBS!” Grif said. Reflex or performance? Simmons leaned towards reflex, personally; Grif’d called dibs as soon as he’d laid eyes on it in Red base.

Washington nodded like that was acceptance. “I’ll be at Blue base.” Then he left.

“... god he really is a freelancer.” Grif muttered.

“So dramatic.” Simmons agreed.

“A perfect blue, then.”

“That movie was really scary!” Caboose said. Simmons and Grif both jumped.

“Jesus, Caboose!” Grif yelled.

“Hello!” Caboose said, hand clasped in front of him, standing on the balls of his feet.

“... Yes?” Grif said.

“I don’t think that’s what you say when someone says hello.” Caboose said, contemplative.

“Why didn’t you leave with Washington?” Simmons asked, diverting away from the tangent.

“Oh. Um. Well. You got Grif back, so. Maybe if I do whatever you did Church will come back too.” Caboose pulled in his hands, playing with his fingers and looking down. Like even he knew it was a silly longshot.

“I…” Simmons glanced at Grif, who offered only a panicked shrug. “I just… waited. I got lucky,” Simmons said. It wasn’t a lie either.

Caboose nodded seriously. “Then I’m going to need... four leaf clovers. Lots of those.” Caboose ran off. “Washingtub! Do you know any clover patches?!”

Grif and Simmons watched him go. “... does clover even grow on this planet?” Grif asked.

“I don’t think that matters.”

\---

Grif got properly reintegrated into the goings on between bases, the sealskin went back into its place meant for vital supplies, and all returned to normal. Normal as in there were brief yelling matches between teams, Caboose ran around with a luck obsession for a full day and a half, and Sarge gave his speech about the glory of Red team. The extended edition.

What struck Simmons most of all was how little actually changed. Sarge added a few cracks about blubber to the rotation and a 1-800-R-U-SLAPPIN magnet appeared on Red Team’s fridge (What? Of course not Grif, don’t be ridiculous Grif, what kind of person would purchase such a silly thing from AncientMemes.com for 14.99, plus 20.99 shipping?). But that was it. Grif even took naps in the Emergency Nap Blanket again, when he felt safe enough.

Of course about a month after Grif walked into the valley, Carolina arrived and no one felt particularly safe for a very, _very_ long while.

\---

Red Team ran into an actually alive Donut after they returned to Valhalla.

“You must have _just_ missed us!” Doc said, leaning on a garden hoe. “We went on a month long backpacking trip, healed Donut’s gutshot right up! I mean, I would have prefered the Crest toothpaste on the elbow method, but all you had was Colgate.”

“Oh, and we just couldn’t leave Lopez alone all that time!” Donut said, fondly patting the head of their makeshift scarecrow. “His head popped right off, fit all snug on top of my backpack. Really worked out great!” Donut said. He did look better, in that he was alive.

Yeah that thing about death eventually playing for keeps? Simmons formally retracted the assertion. Death was on vacation, nothing mattered anymore, go play gun tag with Caboose because honestly he always seemed to have fun doing it.

Simmons and Grif chewed vacantly on slices of banana bread, sat on top of Red Base while Carolina busied herself with the dead Pelican wreckage. It was alright. Cutting baked goods with a combat knife gave it a weird aftertaste, but still. Banana bread.

“Simmons,” Grif said apropos of nothing, “I swear. If she yells at us again, I’m walking out.”

“Tell me about it,” Simmons muttered. Carolina’s leadership grated down his last nerve hours ago.

“Right into the ocean.”

“Hm.” Simmons took another bite of banana bread. Paused. Shallowed. “Wait, literally?”

Grif held up two fingers, pinching them as close together as he could without touching them. _“This close_ Simmons.”

“Oh, are we talking about that now?” Donut said brightly. “Fiiiinally!”

Simmons startled and made a perfectly masculine noise of surprise that wasn’t even a little bit of a yelp. “T-talking about what? And when the hell did you get here?!”

“Grif being a selkie of course! He’s always so tight, closed off, I never knew he relaxed enough to let you in Simmons!”

“How the fuck did _you_ know?!” Grif shrieked, on his feet and banana bread crushed in his hand.

“Well you did get really defensive over a sealskin blanket. It wasn’t hard! One of my cousins is a changeling, so I know all the ins and outs of fae relations.”

“This somehow raises even more questions.” Simmons mumbled, head in his hands.

\---

With Donut officially in the know, the only member of Red Team left in the dark was Lopez.

“-she always said fae were secretive, only me in ‘cause I gave her my Ultra Secret Nail Polish from my personal stash, _and_ told her that I thought the boil on her knee was a perfectly healthy shade of lavender-”

“Donut,” Grif growled, _“Stop talking.”_

“Come ooooon, can’t I at least give you her email? You two have so much in common! Selkies and changelings get along great!”

“According to who?!” Simmons yelled, following them both.

“(What and what do what?)” Lopez said, head resting on the kitchen counter.

\---

After that Donut got distracted by current events and thankfully dropped the subject. Or forgot about it. Either worked for Simmons.

See, the real kicker with Red Team Problems was that they _stayed_ Red Team Problems, thank you very much. They didn’t go wild, drag Blue Team all over creation, or try to threaten them in compliance. No one ever got a gun pointed at them over Red Team’s junk.

Grif walked out into the ocean after he left the hologram room. Simmons found his armor on the beach.

Simmons didn’t count all 6851 seconds until he came back.

That would be ridiculous.

\---

Grif wandered into Red Base’s kitchen, dripping wet, wearing sweatpants, calmer but still tense. He locked eyes with Simmons. Simmons held the Red Army manual in one hand, the other arm slung casually on the back of his chair. It was exactly the opposite of how Simmons sat in chairs while reading.

“Hey,” Grif said.

“Hey,” Simmons said.

Over many years, it got easier to read intent in a person you knew well. In addition, like other senses seeming heightened when blindfolded, learning to read someone with armor on all the time meant that without it, their heads may as well have been glass. Simmons could see Grif thinking ‘ _Simmons only reads Red Team manual when he’s nervous_.’ But even worse, Simmons wasn’t in armor either. Grif could certainly see Simmons seeing it.

Even with a glass face, Simmons suspected that Grif read Simmons better than Simmons could ever read Grif.

“Good swim?” Simmons asked, if only to shift the swirling contents of Grif’s mind into places less murky and indistinct.

Grif half heartedly Eh’ed. Simmons saw ‘ _Yeah, but talking about that still feels weird, so._ ’ Grif ducked to the kitchen cabinets that ostensibly contained cleaning supplies, but had been supplanted by a Grif Contraband Snack Stash (where the fuck did he even get Doritos _from_ ) months ago. It had the added effect of turning Grif’s back to Simmons, casually and subtly hiding his face for the next sentence.

“Fuck the Blues,” Grif said.

Simmons closed the Red Team manual. “Yeah, fuck ‘em.” Simmons muttered. Neither of them moved to look into their glass faces, for fear of what they would see each other seeing.

\---

A lot of shit happened. Carolina and Church ran off, speeches were made, everyone rallied to save their sorry asses. Church halfway apologized, they fought an army of knock-off Texes, the Director got killed. Then they all got stranded on another planet in the middle of nowhere and Church fucked off with Carolina. Which on the one hand was a dick move. On the other, Simmons was glad they were gone. The whole atmosphere they carried with them was unbearable levels of Freelancer.

Being stranded in a jungle with no large bodies of water had a way of killing discussions on Selkie Stuff, so despite of Dos.0 being Red Team, no one ever told him about it.

No one ever told Doc, or Felix (Thank fucking _Christ_ ), Kimball, Jenson, Bitters, Matthews, Andersmith, Palomo, Dr. Grey, Doyle, Santa, Dylan, or Jax.

And Locus wasn’t _told_ exactly.

\---

“I don’t like you. Any of you.”

Simmons wasn’t one for metaphor. Language was best used to describe clearly and simply. Obscuring things with comparisons or flowery verbiage defeated the point, in his mind.

The only exception was pain. Pain can’t be described _without_ metaphor. Simmons didn’t think about it much, but at that moment-

_So this is what being shot in the chest feels like._

Surely it wasn’t a metaphor. If Simmons looked down he’d see a clean and bloodless hole in armor, wind whistling through the cavity like through the hollow of a cut reed. How could words do that?

The injury was neat, precise, and cold. Surgical in how exactly it struck everything Simmons feared and expected since that day on Sidewinder’s ice shelf.

Sarge asked Grif to turn around. Simmons didn’t.

\---

Dylan caught him staring out at the window again. It was a window out of the way from everything else in the Blue and Reds base, looking out into the open alien ocean. Being out of the way, water dripped from unaddressed leaks, pipes groaned, and the beginnings of rust dotted the floors and walls. Lighting would have been terrible, except the window was wide enough to make up for the broken and flickering fluorescents. Simmons watched one of those alien whale like things swim by, calling low and mournful notes out into the blue.

“Hey,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Simmons laughed slightly and didn’t turn away from the window. “Yeah, five times. Do I qualify for some kind of exclusive now?”

Dylan joined him in front of the window. “I think I could work something out, if you wanted. You’ve been pretty quiet.”

“Hm.”

“Except when the subject of Gene comes up.”

Simmons rolled his eyes. “Augh, did you see what he did this morning? He organized all the files alphanumerically! By _title!_ That’s a totally useless system for a database that large and varied-”

“Or,” Dylan cut in, “especially so when I mention Grif.”

Simmons didn’t respond. The alien whale sighed. It slowly turned in a circle again, swimming another fruitless lap around nothing.

Dylan pushed. “You never did talk to me about him leaving. Tucker did. Sarge did. I figured, if anyone was going to have an opinion…”

“What opinion would I have? He left.”

Dylan picked up something in his tone. “Was him leaving… expected?”

The alien whale sang again. The sound rattled around in Simmons’ chest.

 _That’s how all the stories go_ Simmons thought and didn’t say. _At least he told us he was leaving._

\---

Temple chucked Grif into the cell next to Simmons, and before either of them could get any words out, Simmons grabbed Grif’s hands through the bars and pulled him in. Their helmets clunked against the cell and each other.

 _“You came back,”_ Simmons whispered, just loud enough for Grif to hear. Grif gasped softly, just loud enough for Simmons to hear.

It wasn’t on script, not for Temple, not for Tucker, or anyone else in the room. Temple got back into the swing of being a dickhead first, and Grif pulled far enough away to apologize to endlessly.

Simmons felt Grif’s hand slip out of his own, and he frowned.

\---

Simmons had a lot of questions, a lot to say, and not much idea where to start.

“-nd Locus was actually really cool with it? Or else he was in shock. Kind of a quiet dude, hard to tell. Anyway, he didn’t ask me a ton of questions, more focused on saving you guys, so-”

“Hey,” Simmons said, for lack of any other opener.

“...Yeah?” Grif said, falling into a familiar pattern.

“You-... I’m really glad you came back,” Simmons said, “I’m opening with that first, because what I’m saying next could maybe sound bad in certain contexts, so- so for the sake of clarity, I’m opening with that! I’m glad you’re back Captain Dexter Grif!”

Grif looked unnerved. That isn’t what Simmons intended at all. Goddammit.

“It’s… okay, you’re apologizing a _lot._ And some of that is probably needed? I mean, they’re Blues, but the Jean Grey line was pretty cold.”

Grif laughed. “Yeah, could have gone with something less heated. Like Optimus Prime. Or Loki.”

Simmons nodded. “The whole super hero pantheon- wait no. Not changing the subject.”

Grif stiffened and Simmons took a step closer to emphasize the point.

”Maybe you could have said it more… diplomatically but-” Simmons bit his lip. Struggled for words. “You didn’t have to come back.”

Simmons saw Grif flinch, like he’d been pierced clean through, and panicked.

“I mean! Fuck, that’s what the opening was for! I guess… no you saved our asses, rescue was needed and appreciated! Uh. What I mean is… you weren’t wrong to _leave._ In the first place.”

Grif snorted. It wasn't a nice sound.”Because it worked out so great for everyone.”

Simmons winced. The script, the reliable stand by, flashed his cue cards behind his eyes. Simmons replies “Yeah, that could have gone better, you moron,” or maybe some nicer wording thereof. But that wasn’t what Simmons wanted to say.

“You couldn’t have known that, and it isn’t my point anyway.” Simmons said, waving his arms like he was brushing the idea away.

Grif’s stance hardened. “So what _is_ the point, Simmons?”

“The _point_ is-!” Simmons fumbled. Flailed. “Augh! I’m saying I’ll live if you go, alright? No, that’s the worst phrasing yet, fucking hell.”

“Are you having a stroke…?” Grif asked, only half joking.

“I. Like. Having. You. Around. But. Only. If. You. Want. To. Be. Around.” Simmons said, picking each word one at a time.

“And now you’re talking like a robot. Did Sarge take some brain and never tell me, because a short circuit is about all that makes sense right now.”

Grif wasn’t getting it, of all times for words to fail him. Simmons wanted to make this clear, he wanted to say what he meant more than he ever had in his entire life.

“I-YOU-IT’S- AUGH! I’M NEVER GONNA STEAL YOUR SKIN, OKAY?!”

Grif stopped. Stopped moving, stopped talking, stopped doing anything.

Simmons gulped, looked at the floor, looked back up at Grif’s helmet visor. “I… read the stories. As a kid. Staying doesn’t mean anything if you make someone, you know? With guilt or fairytale bullshit or whatever the fuck. If the second we stop Temple you wanna say sayonara and walk out forever that’s-” the word ‘fine’ caught in Simmons’ throat like a fish hook. “Not… fine... by me. But I’d get it. I’d deal.”

Wind whistled through the hole in Simmons’ chest, the one that hadn’t closed even when Grif came back. He knew he’d said the wrong thing. Or, even worse, that he’d said exactly the right one. The blank visor of Grif’s helmet was too much to bear, and Simmons looked away. “That’s… that’s what I wanted to say,” Simmons muttered.

For a moment and an eternity, no one moved.

The moment broke when Simmons felt Grif’s hand in his.

A light touch. Unsure. Easily shaken. Simmons stilled like a baby bird had been placed in his fingers.

“Did I ever tell you about my mom?” Grif said in some half-hearted imitation of nonchalant.

Simmons matched Grif’s tone. “Is that a trick question?”

Grif laughed. “Well I am now, so pay attention.”

Simmons obliged. Grif looked away now, off to the side. But his hand was still in Simmons’ hand.

“She loved people. Humans. Loved how they built shit and made food and danced and fucked. Set up shop on land and lived there full time. Couldn’t get enough of em.”

Grif’s grip tightened, but he still wasn’t looking at Simmons.

“But… when she had me and Kai, she could have had a couple of human babies. Woulda been easier than having us out at sea. But she didn’t. She said-...  when she was around, she always said you can’t trust humans. Weird, right? Liked humans so much she’s basically one 24/7, but that’s what she always said. ‘Humans are great, but you can’t _really_ trust them. Clever tricky brains, always tryin to get an _advantage.’”_

Grif laced his fingers with Simmons’.

“She’d’ve used you as crowning proof, kissass. Always looking for that leg up. That advantage.”

“Eh,” Simmons said, squeezing back. “Who gives a fuck?”

Grif laughed, and held on.

And held on.

And held on some more for good measure.

\---

They beat Temple. Caboose said a proper goodbye. Donut complained about his hair frizzing up because of how close that weird discharge (his words) got to hitting him. Simmons stood next to Grif and thought about taking his hand again, but before he could either work up the nerve or change his mind, Kaikaina Grif stepped off of the ship.

“Bitch shut up and hug me!” was her first order to Grif. “We’re going swimming like _now._ ” was her second.

“Kai, come on. We just did a whole thing, can’t I at least eat first?!” Grif whined, trying to untangle himself from Kai’s grip.

“Nope! It’s been years, FOREVER since I was in real ass earth ocean, even longer since I swam with you, so I’m not waiting another fuckin second! Move your butt!”

“Damn man, I thought you had to be dating a girl to be whipped!” Tucker crowed. Carolina punched him in the head, Sarge screamed “CIVIL WAR AMONGST THE BLUES!” and Simmons watched as it devolved into a dumb argument sure to settle into approximately three separate dumb arguments. By his calculations it could go anywhere from two hours to six, depending on Carolina’s tolerance for nonsense and assertions from the peanut gallery.

Kaikaina dragged Grif down the beach while everyone was distracted. Everyone except Simmons.

Simmons followed them.

Kai shot Simmons a look as he stumbled after them, working towards the rocky shore. “Hey Grif, what’s the deal with the pervert?”

Simmons sputtered, Grif sighed. “He’s Simmons, you met him, and he’s cool.”

“Like cool about seeing me naked or cool about the other thing? Cause last I checked-”

“I AM STILL NOT OKAY WITH YOU BEING NAKED IN PUBLIC.”

“Oooooh, so you actually told someone!” Kai looked impossibly smug. “Wait until Mom hears about you breaking the rule first! And after all those _lectures_ about ‘keeping it secret’ and ‘Kai that’s beastiality’! Lame.”

“Wait, what?” Simmons didn’t get a chance to press for more clarification, because Kaikaina stripped down right there on the beach, out of her armor faster than Simmons thought possible. He barely got time to turn his head away before she was naked and wrapped only in her sealskin (where’d she even pull _that_ from?). Before either Grif or Simmons could get a word in, Kai was off and running.

Kai ran to the waves like it was a lover who’d always catch her. She dove in, and in the foam of her entrance a seal’s tail broke the surface. It splashed once, propelling Kai farther out, and Simmons lost track of her in the bright sunrise surf.

Grif sighed, and started unclasping his armor. “I’d better go after her.”

“Right.” Simmons said. “She’s uh… exactly like I remember.”

Grif smiled slightly, fondly. “Yeah.”

The ocean glinted in the early morning light, a bright and friendly golden accent on the sea. Rocky sand beneath Simmons’ boots that just a few hours ago seemed like the perfect accent to a hostile base now seemed almost playful, a rough texture but not a cruel one. Simmons heard an honest to god seagull cry somewhere, just to put a bow on it. And in front of him was Grif, stripping out of his armor, patches of white skin standing out even more than usual on the dark rocky beach.

When Grif got down to his survival suit, he finally extracted his sealskin from the emergency pack and wrapped it around his shoulders. It should have been a awkward maneuver, removing a full body skin tight suit while trying to keep what was basically a cape balanced on his shoulders, but it wasn’t. The skin stayed put with no effort on Grif’s part. So Simmons felt no need to look away.

Once the suit was off and tossed aside (of course _both_ of them just tossed their armor pieces into the sand) Grif paused for a moment. Simmons expected him to pull a similar move to Kai, maybe with a leisurely walk instead of a run, but-

Grif fuckin flopped forward into the ground. Fell face first like he was gonna take a nap right there on the beach and couldn’t be bothered to sit first.

“That’s gotta be the least magical thing I’ve seen, ever, in my life,” Simmons said. Grif groaned out a seal noise in reply. Simmons approached and bent down. “Are you even actually gonna swim or what?”

Grif sat up and snorted right in Simmons’ face.

“You’re unbelievable,” Simmons said. It came out a lot more affectionate than usual. Grif smiled, so obviously Simmons didn’t even think to question how he saw it on a seal’s face, and because he got distracted.

By the white patch over Grif’s eye.

“That…” Simmons said, reaching out. He lightly brushed the fur over Grif’s eye, his left one. How hadn’t he noticed before? “That’s where I-”

Grif leaned into the touch. Purred. Now that Simmons cared to look it was obvious. Grif’s patches of white fur matched where Simmons had given him pieces. Simmons’ heart filled with huge, warm, overwhelming feelings and before he even thought about it-

“I love you.”

Grif stopped purring.

 _Welp,_ Simmons thought. _There it is. I ruined it. Grif’s gonna run off into the ocean with Kai and I’m never gonna see him again._

Simmons pulled his hand back, took in a breath, ready to stumble, deny, apologize, or some malformed combo of all three, but before he could get a single word out Grif snapped at his hand.

As in, Grif bit Simmons’ hand and didn’t let go.

“Grif?!” Simmons shrieked. Oh god what did that mean?! Was Grif mad enough _biting_ was the only reaction that made sense?!

Simmons tried to pull away but Grif held on, teeth dug deep into his gloves. He started flopping towards the ocean, dragging Simmons along for the ride.

“Okay, can you stop for a second and explain what you’re doing?! I’m sorry! It just, slipped out!”

Simmons could have yanked himself out of Grif’s mouth, except that might hurt Grif. So Simmons got dragged into the surf as awkwardly as possible, half crab-walking while Grif flopped as fast as his pudgy seal body could carry him.

“Griiiif…” Simmons whined, as the waves climbed higher. Distracted as he was by the water level, Simmons didn’t notice when Grif got some floatation going. One thrash of his tail and he _yanked_ Simmons into the ocean.

The shift was totally disorienting. From rough and awkward stumbling in the surf to sinking to the ocean floor ten feet deep. Simmons swayed with the push and pull of the tide, even in full power armor. Light filtered through the foaming surface like through a leafy canopy on a windy day. Everything moved.

Grif, still attached to his hand, compensated for the tide too. He wasn’t pulling anymore, content to just float there in front of him with Simmons hand in his mouth, like it was a thing to do.

Grif’s stare was… intense. Even with objectively adorable seal’s eyes. Slowly he let go of Simmons’ hand. Simmons let it drop, didn’t break eye contact.

Slowly, hesitantly, Grif swam closer. He swam right up to Simmons’ face, and then he knocked his muzzle against Simmons’ visor.

In the same way Simmons _knew_ when Grif was smiling and laughing, he knew without question that was a kiss.

“Oh. _Oh.”_ Simmons said, full of wonder. He reached out again, ran a light hand down Grif’s head. Grif nuzzled at his helmet again. A seal nuzzling up against a space marine in full armor, under the ocean. _What could be more romantic than that?_ Simmons thought hysterically.

Obviously the seal’s sister barging in from the side and knocking Simmons directly onto his butt.

“Hey!” Simmons said, scrambling to his feet as fast as he could. Which given the circumstances wasn’t very fast at all. By the time her got up, Grif and Kai were swimming in circles, nipping at each other’s tails. It looked like a lot of fun. Simmons watched and quietly felt like the outsider he was here.

 _Any minute now they’re going to swim off, and you’re gonna crawl back to shore, clean up their armor, go to the ship, and never see either of them again,_ an insidious voice whispered in Simmons’ ear.

Kai peeled off first, swimming ahead into the deeper waters. She looked back at Grif and motioned for him to follow. He didn’t. Instead-

Grif turned to look back at Simmons. And he repeated the motion.

 _“Come on,”_ Simmons almost _heard,_ in Grif’s usual drawl, a calm insistence more than an invitation.

So Simmons followed, walking on the brightly lit, dancing seafloor in a metal skin of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'I have come in from the ocean  
> I have come in from the sea  
> And I'll not go to the waves, love  
> Lest ye come along with me.'
> 
> -The Maiden and the Selkie  
> Heather Dale


End file.
